HILLAH, Iraq — Fern Holland, Salwa Ourmaishi and Robert Zangas came from different walks of life, but they all were unabashed idealists drawn to Iraq by a heartfelt belief that they could make a difference in the lives of the people.

Their dreams died outside this city when they were run off the road and shot to death on March 9, hours after Holland, a lawyer from Oklahoma, and Ourmaishi, her Iraqi translator, had arranged to help a poor woman evict a squatter from her land as part of their work for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Holland and Zangas were the coalition's first American civilian employees to be killed in Iraq.

All three embodied the conflicting dreams of Iraqi society. Zangas, 44, was trying to instill the concept of a free press in a nation that had been censored by the Saddam Hussein regime. Holland, 33, and Ourmaishi, 35, were working to bring women's rights to a country that traditionally relegated women to lower status.

But those goals clashed with the ideas held by many in Iraq, even after the fall of the Hussein regime. So did some of their practices. Friends and family said Holland and Ourmaishi rarely wore the traditional head covers used by most women in Iraq, especially those in the Shiite Muslim regions south of Baghdad. Even if she had worn a scarf, Holland very likely would not have blended into an Iraqi crowd; she was a blue-eye blond.

Nor did they follow the coalition requirements for safety, refusing to travel in an armored car or with armed guards.

After the attack, coalition officials announced they had arrested six men, at least four of whom were identified as Iraqi police officers, but they released few other details about the attack.

The question of whether the three had been targeted because of their actions on behalf of Iraqis or whether they were unlucky victims of the violence that permeates the country a year after the U.S. invasion remains unanswered.

Possessing a laser focus on serving Iraqi women, Holland and Ourmaishi had been driving around the country without armed escorts since about late January, according to friends in the United States and Iraqi women with whom they worked. They ignored the requirement that they travel with an armed convoy because they felt gunmen would intimidate the people they were trying to help.

Holland hated the feeling of walking into a women's center or a mosque with soldiers in tow, said Sawsan al-Barak, director of the Fatima al-Zahra Center for Women's Rights in Hillah. Al-Barak, who took at least a half-dozen trips with Holland and Ourmaishi, said they preferred an inconspicuous blue Daewoo sedan rather than the armor-plated GMC SUVs typically used by coalition employees.

"Fern felt like Iraq was becoming her family," said al-Barak, who became close friends with Holland and Ourmaishi. "Still, we all worried about them. Fern was an American woman who stuck out. She was beautiful. She looked like the actress Jodie Foster and Barbie."

Even Zangas, who had twice served as a Marine reservist in the gulf region, including a stint last year in Iraq, said he was having a hard time keeping his guard up as a civilian.

"I am constantly reminded of the threat by our security guys," he wrote on a Web log he was keeping while in Iraq. "I'm sorry, but I just can't buy into it yet. Perhaps when a bullet ricochets near my body, I'll see the light."

Beneficiary weeps for dead

Weeping into the sleeve of her black abaya, Shadha Hamza Jawad said she could only hope that Holland's and Ourmaishi's slayings weren't related to the work they had been doing for Iraqi women like herself.

For four years, Jawad said, she had been asking the mayor and judge in her tiny town of Al Kifil to move a man who was squatting on land that legally belonged to her and her daughter. But no one listened to Jawad, 56, who has been shunned in her village since her husband left her decades ago.

Then Jawad enlisted the help of Holland, an American human-rights lawyer specializing in women's issues, and her Iraqi translator, Ourmaishi.

"I asked her how can she get involved with this. `Isn't she afraid?'" Jawad recalled. "Fern said to me: `I am not afraid. I am doing what is right.' I can only hope her helping me has not led to this merciful angel being killed."

On the day of their death, Holland and Ourmaishi came to the village and arranged for a bulldozer to level the squatter's mud-brick hut. It would be their last good act.

After completing their work in Al Kifil, Holland and Ourmaishi drove to the Zainab al-Hawra'a Center for Women's Rights in Karbala to pick up Zangas, said Dr. Amal Umrin, the center's director.

Zangas had conducted an all-day news-writing seminar for a group of budding women journalists. The three then headed back to coalition headquarters in Hillah with Holland behind the wheel, Umrin said. They never arrived.